had occurred during their
play-hours.

Such beginnings, though small in themselves, soon led to more
ambitious attempts being made to set to music short humorous
dialogues, so as to make little operas. To write an opera, however,
was not enough--it must be performed, in order to ascertain how it
would go. This was a serious matter, and one calling for the services
of several performers--a miniature orchestra, in fact--with singers to
undertake the various parts. But Felix, as we have seen, was
thoroughly in earnest about all that he undertook, and his earnestness
enabled him to surmount even so great a difficulty as was here
presented. The appearance in his character of this love of
completeness must be noted, as, later on, it became one of his most
strongly-marked characteristics. 'If a thing is worth doing at all, it
is worth doing well,' was the saying which, even as a child,
controlled all his actions; and so Felix would have his orchestra.

Love and money combined can accomplish the apparently impossible, and
hence the orchestra was duly selected and engaged by the indulgent
father from the members of the Court Band. To his delight--yet nowise
to his embarrassment--Felix found himself in command of a company of
sedate and experienced musicians, ready to follow the lead of his
baton when it pleased him to take his place at the music-desk.
Everything was now furnished for the performance, but the sense of
completeness was not yet satisfied. There must be a better judge than
the composer himself present to pass judgment on the merits of the
piece, and so no less a person than Carl Zelter, the director of the
Berlin Singakademie, and Felix's professor for thorough-bass and
composition, was induced to undertake this delicate office, whilst a
large number of friends of the family were invited for the occasion.

This was the beginning of a long and regular series of musical parties
at the Mendelssohn house--parties to which, as time went on, it became
a privilege to be invited, at which, indeed, hardly a musician of any
note who happened to be passing through Berlin failed to put in an
appearance. The picture is before us as we write--and as it must often
have been recalled by those who frequented the house beside the
canal--of the child-musician standing on a footstool before his
music-desk, baton in hand, gravely conducting his orchestra. 'A
wonder-child indeed,' as one has described him, 'in his boy's suit,
shaking